Alea iacta est

Friday, March 2, 2018

Lets face it, we all get a little charge from posting the look what I just got stuff so here is mine from the last couple of months. Feel free to turn green with envy! Just prior to Christmas I treated myself to a few choice purchases at Half Price Books with their 40% off coupon sale.

First up are some
miniatures.I’ve always wanted to pick
up some of the newer plastic Nurgle flying beasts/daemons so this was an easy
choice. Especially since Papa Nurgle is next up once the Champions of Khorne are complete. I also
grabbed a 1/35 German PAK anti tank gun for $3.85 I couldn’t pass it up.Not sure how it will scale with my 28mm Bolt
Action line but worst case I use it for some conversion work on something
Konflict 46 or other WWW2 project.

And some
paper.I was able to find a Horus Heresy
book that I didn’t have as well as a copy of Frostgrave.Any comments and insights from players would
be greatly appreciated!I’ve heard some decent reviews about it and my initial 15 min skim while the wife was shopping
seemed interesting.

A couple of months later I had a 20% off coupon and landed two more nice pieces. Biggest was this Dust Tactics original starter box. The most surprising was an old Space 1889 box of Kraag Warriors. I'm about to venture into the WW2/WWW2 realm with some Warlord Games Bolt Action and Konflict 46 figures along with other Dust pieces that I have so this was a great buy. If anyone is interested in the American troops let me know I'm willing to trade or sell them.

The Space 1889 was a surprising find and while I don't have any current plans for a Victorian Sci Fi project, I couldn't pass it up. It was in great shape and complete.

Okay enough bragging
and showing off, next post should have some more substance/paint progress.

Monday, February 26, 2018

I decided to post an update on the Champions of Khorne. As you can see its been a slow, slogging process. Weather has been horrible here between snow and rain/flooding, such that my available paint time has been limited. In what time I have managed eek out I did get them flash cleaned, primed, a second flash/mold line cleaning and final prime coat. Here they are between the filing.

I also got base coats down for the black, brown, red and flesh sections.

I have quickly come to realize that trying to paint them in mass is probably not the right tactic. I find it a great process if you are either painting multiple copies of the same figure or at least have a cohesive paint scheme for a unit of mixed figures. But trying to paint what in my mind is essentially 16 individual figures all at the same time is a little daunting. I have different color combos for each figure so it is becoming a stop and start process. Given I am putting forth a herculean effort in fighting my ADD desire to just drop the whole thing and dive into some Car Wars/Dark Future/Gaslands projects, I have decided to change my approach and break them into smaller groups of 3 miniatures. This will hopefully help speed up the process and help hold my attention.

I want to give a shout out to Kit from Hobby Holder which I supported when it was a Kickstarter towards the end of last year. I've always been intrigued by the thought of a figure holding set up. There was a Kickstarted a while back for one that was as much a work of art as a tool with wooden handles, bases and all sorts of nice metal pieces. Unfortunately it was more than my cheapness would allow me to spend. GWS has come out with one as well that looks interesting with a vise like adjustable head. Any of these seem to beat my old habit of grabbing the base and the highest point, typically a sword, to hold for painting. I cant tell you how many times I pinched just a bit too hard and bent a lead sword. I tried my own set up with a pill bottle version, it was okay but very top heavy and prone to falling over when not in my hand. Then I saw the Hobby Holder project and thought it was perfect. It was very affordable at $20 and had a simple interchangeable system of pop bottle tops for holding the miniatures. Here are a couple of pics of it. They are available from his web store here Hobby Holder.

Now that I have a couple of hours test driving it I have to say I really like it. Easy to hold, steadies the hand, allows you to turn it as needed and it is easy to change out miniatures.

I mentioned my ADD desire to jump to a new project, its like my own version of Pinto's little devil from the movie Animal House.

He is sitting on my should saying "Go a head, paint it, paint its brains out! Grab a brush, squeeze its base, you know it wants it!" There is a new Gaslands group on G+ and with some inspiring Hotwheels conversions and what not. It really makes me want to jump back into this realm of miniatures. I enjoyed the couple of vehicles I did about a year ago and I have these goodies already built.

I'm lucky the weather is bad, otherwise there would be some grey overspray in the driveway from getting these primed up! I just need to exercise some patience and focus!

Monday, January 29, 2018

Early on in my enjoyment of the various Oldhammer bloggs I noticed a trend towards focusing on a particular grouping or genre of miniatures and collecting the entire group of said miniatures, a quest of sorts.

I've seen everything from ultra rare miniature collections to readily available items. I don't have big enough balls or wallet to tackle something like The Lichmaster or McDeath or Judge Dredd sets but I felt like I wasn't a part of the club unless I took on the pursuit of some collection. I gave it some thought. First it has to be something that will motivate me, a set or range that I honestly want to have. I meditated on it for hours...yea right! Narrowing it down was actually a pretty easy decision. I love the Realm Of Chaos miniatures from the 80's.

Come on, just look a them, what Oldhammer enthusiast doesn't like these mins! So it had to be something from the early ROC range. Being an old football player, the followers of the Blood God have always held a place of fondness in my heart; you know violence, blood, and skulls! Selecting Khorne as the target group was the next logical step. The biggest decision was what exactly to collect. I flipped through old catalogues and came across this page which on the Stuff of Legends is from the 1991 Red Catalogue 2.

I believe that this is the first listing, or at least one of the first, for a collection of Champions of Khorne. It fit my needs in terms of providing an objective, being reasonably available and sized, and I was comfortable with the financial investment it would take.

After establishing the quest, I got started on it. My first step was to go through the collection and see what I already had. I was actually very presently surprised. Having been a fan of Khorne since the release of ROC I have purchased several of the miniatures over the ensuing decades. In fact I discovered that I already had 8 of the 12 miniatures!

The Hateful Eight.

Wow, only 4 miniatures to go. "This will be a piece of cake!" I said to myself as I sat down to log on to eBay and see what I could find. 3 of the missing figures all have "tech" chaos gifts. Quick background note for those unaware, since Khorne isn't fond of magic he grants his followers gifts of technology instead, hence the chainfist, power fist, power mace fist, and bolter pistol. I was missing figures 5 (Bladed Mace, Horns and Tech Weapon), figure 6 (Mace, Chainfist, Mankin and Mechanical Leg), and figure 10 (Sword, Head of a Bloodletter and Tech Weapon).

Hard to find, who knew?

The 4th missing musketeer is figure 1 (Armed with Sword and Attributed with Horns). Technically I actually have him, or better put a part of him. I sliced his body in half to use in the conversion below.

I was surprised at how uncommon these particular miniatures are or at least how scarce they are on eBay. I should qualify that, scarce at the price that I was willing to pay. While I had resigned myself to make an investment in this collection I still wasn't going to pay the outrageous prices that sometimes occur on eBay. I exercised some patience and over the last 6 months I managed to pick up the 3 tech guys. I'm still debating on if I should consider the converted guy or pick up a whole version.

I'm also going to do take this opportunity to do some paint and color tests. Over the last year or so I've manged to get several copies of my favorite chaos warrior figures from the Marauder line. Its a bit odd actually, this guy used to make the occasional appearance on eBay but recently he has been readily available which has afforded me the opportunity to pick up a few more copies. My game plan is to try some different base/undercoat color tests for the red areas on these figures to compare the results.

Clearly I have a problem when it comes to this one!

As you can see each has a different base coat and my intent is to also play around with some yellow and brown bases as well. Now all that is left is to start slapping on some paint!

Sunday, January 14, 2018

You knew I'd be
back so pack your bone And hit the road jack cause daddy's
home!” Kid Rock Forever

Couldn’t have put
it any better, thanks Richie.In my 2017 wrap up I mentioned that I moved. The holiday week was very helpful and I managed to get some time to unpack. The new hobby area/man cave is ridiculous!

I still have a bit more to unpack and organizing but I'm inching closer every day. I did get some new shelves cut from foam board to hold the bins for the painting queue items and got them lined up.

The paint tower is looking a little sparse, I need to go though and check all the stock and make sure it is still good. Paint should be flying soon.

I actually got some modeling work done on the new Car Wars/Dark Future project, some big rigs!

That picture is just a tease I'll cover that project in more detail soon. I think that the first big project of 2018 will actually be a unit made up of all the champions of Khorne that I have finally collected.

Again just a teaser picture! I also had a productive run at the used bookstore where I manager to pick up a copy of Imperial Assault for less than $50.

Looks like 2018 holds some painting of Star Wars figures. That's it for now, more meaningful posts coming soon.

Sunday, December 31, 2017

It appears to be popular to have a year in review post, here is my go at it.

2017 Goals-My biggest goal for 2017 was to simply get back into the hobby. I felt like I had been lurking/trolling the Oldhammer blogs for far too long and needed to get active. The easiest was to pick up the paint brush again and start knocking out my ridiculous amount of unpainted lead. I wasn't nearly as productive as I had wanted to be. I will take a little bit of the blame but I'll also pass a little bit of the blame on buying a new house and moving. I have to apologize to Orlygg, when he fell of the blogging horse for awhile due to a house purchase I was silently a little indignant. I mean whats the big deal, all you did was move. Yea, it turns out that moving is a very big deal! I'm not sure what his situation was but I had 22 years of stuff to go through, and I'm fairly confident that my wife and I never threw anything away! It has literally consumed me for the last 6 months between finding a new house, getting the old house ready to sell, getting everything packed up, moved, and while we are in the new house we aren't anywhere close to getting unpacked. But I've been hard at work on the new hobby room/man cave!

Productivity wise it looks like I managed to get 32 posts in this year which is close to my weekly/52 posts goal, at least better than 50%! So I'm pretty psyched with those results. Painting performance was not as productive but still better than nothing. I managed to get a few old hammer figures done, particularly a Jes Goodwin Ogre, some of the Oldhammer inspired Eru-Kin mins by Diehard Miniatures, and a few Rogue Trader mins. I'm very disappointed that I didn't get a chance to partake in Orctober or Deadcember but these were right in the middle of all the house moving. On a positive note it gives me a goal for 2018.

2018 Goals- First and foremost, getting the hobby/gaming/man cave set up! Good news is that I've already done a lot of work on it so the paint should be flying soon! A shout out to Chico who has inspired me to jump into the WW2/Weird War 2/Konflikt 47 with some Warlord Games and Dust Tactics miniatures. I also have a large pile of Oldhammer chaos champions to get into. And lastly some Sci-Fi mins from several companies. Lets hope that 2018 is productive!

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Well Christmas
has come a little early to the new house, I received a package on the front
steps Saturday.

For those that
didn’t partake, this is the OGRE plastic miniatures Kickstarter that Steve
Jackson Games did earlier this year.

I’ve always loved this game and still have my original plastic pocket
boxed set with the original chits.

Being a miniature
enthusiast, I was thrilled when Ral Partha announced they would be doing a
metal mins set for the game. I think these were actually released by Martian Metals first and then re-released by Ral Partha. Some if not all were new sculpts. I cannot say I remember ever seeing the Martian Metals in any of the Hobby Shops I frequented as a kid. Unfortunately, the Ral Partha release didn’t last long due to a falling out between the
two companies. The line abruptly stopped. I have a couple Mk V's painted up but I cannot seem to find any pictures of them and who knows where they are in the mess of hobby moving boxes!

Then SJG did the
miniatures themselves and released them in the innovative VHS tape boxes.A cool idea but not very practical since you
couldn’t put the Ogre’s in without removing the towers.I picked up a few over the years but didn’t
dive in like I should have because this line of figures went the way of the
Dodo as well.

I’m kicking myself for not
picking up a MK VI or a Ninja!

When I saw
the Kickstarter I had to jump in.Would have been nice as part of the Kickstarter to have more Ogre only options, I did manage to
get several of the glow in the dark Mk III and V add-ons. I've already committed to the 2nd set Kickstarter, they have me hooked. Can’t wait to get the painting desk set up
and get started on these guys!

Thursday, November 9, 2017

A while back in
one of my Mining for Warpstone installments I mentioned my semi obsession with
collecting all the Khorne champions from the classic 1991 Catalogue page.I haven’t been psychotic about this goal and
it certainly isn’t as ambitious as trying to collect the McDeath set of figures
or the Lichmaster set but it fit my “need to collect” addiction so off I went.

I’m now down to
just two, the first guy first row and first guy last row. They seem to be relatively available and I was about to buy one of them
and noticed that the slota-tab was missing.I would assume that it was removed for better basing options.My question for the community is this; is
that missing tab a big deal?

I’m more a
painter than an investor/collector so the “pristineness” of the figure isn’t a
major concern for me.I don’t have to
have one in the Mint In Blister condition.For that matter it doesn’t have to be bare metal either.I’ve even purchased a damaged miniature or
two for conversion work, you know that model you would love to do a weapon swap
on but cannot bring yourself to clip off the original.For some reason the missing tab caused me
some pause.Could be due to my reliance
on the slotta-tab basing method. I honestly haven’t based but a meager handful
of figures in any other way.That will
soon change with my recent Space Raiders purchases but they a several weeks if
not months away from that stage.So it
begs me to ask for input and discussion amongst the group to make sure I’m not
losing touch with reality.

Is a slotta-tab
really a part of the miniature?Is it
still mint if it is missing the tab?
Do you use them or cut them off. What are your thoughts!

About Me

I'm a late 40's gamer that grew up in the golden age of miniatures and RPGs in the 80's. I cut my teeth on the likes of TSR's 2nd edition D&D and AD&D, SJG's pocket editions of OGRE and Car Wars and the glorious 3rd edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Rogue Trader from GWS. Long live the games and hair metal of the 80's!